Details of the salary increases were published by the Clerk of Parliament in a 72-page document late on Monday.

Advertisement

Mr Seeney had ''no idea'' of the full extent of the MPs' pay rise when he forwarded Crown law advice to the Parliament Clerk, granting every parliamentarian at least an extra $57,000 in their annual pay packet, following advice that former premier Anna Bligh had acted "unlawfully" when freezing parliamentarians' pay in 2009.

However, Mr Seeney said on Tuesday he was unaware the increase would flow on to extra allowances received by all political office bearers.

Those increases meant Mr Newman's pay jumped by just under $118,000 to $398,271. Mr Obama's salary is $US400,000 ($436,000).

A committee chairman now earns $206,291, which is more than a minister in the previous government. Queensland MPs are now the highest paid state parliamentarians in the nation. ''I had no idea what the calculation would be, I had no idea what the sums would add up to and nor should I have taken that into consideration,'' Mr Seeney said.

''In fact, you could have quite rightly criticised me most vigorously if I had decided, based on what I could get paid, whether I was going to obey the law or not. That is just nonsense.

''We will stick with the law, as it is, until the Parliament changes it. That is a fundamental responsibility of us as a government, to stick with the law, as it is, until the Parliament changes it.

''But it is clear from the numbers which have been produced from those calculations that there needs to be some changes.''

Mr Seeney said he had felt ''uncomfortable'' with the extent of the pay rises and understood why others felt the same. ''I have felt uncomfortable ever since I got the Crown law advice.'' He blamed the previous government.

"This is a mess of Anna Bligh's making," he said. "This is what happens when a government doesn't administer legislation properly, when they don't understand what they are doing.''